Milwaukee’s 2016 Global Youth Service Day was the largest in the city to date!

Global Youth Service Day is the world’s largest service event and recognizes the positive contributions young people make to their communities every day of the year. This year’s signature event took place on Saturday, April 16th, and additional service events took place throughout the month of April.

The Nonprofit Center of Milwaukee is our area’s Lead Agency for Global Youth Service Day, and we are proud to have worked with over 100 partners, including 67 local organizations and 52 schools, to make the event a success. Over 10,000 participants, including over 7,000 youth, came together to plan and complete 109 service projects across our community.

Our service projects ranged from improving park land, conducting food drives, developing community gardens, fostering global partnerships, providing education and outreach, to many other topics. We’re proud of the diversity and impact of these projects and are inspired by the creativity, energy, and talents of the youth of Milwaukee.

In addition to the service projects, the Global Youth Service Day committee hosted a Celebration of Service, which was attended by over 90 youth and over 50 adult volunteers. Attendees learned about various additional service opportunities available with nonprofits in the community and were given the opportunity to commit to future service engagements.

The media highlighted Milwaukee’s Global Youth Service Day in many ways, including television interviews, social media posts, and online articles. In fact, over 21 media stories covered the event! These media stories helped highlight the tremendous capacity young people have for improving their communities.

As a result of Global Youth Service Day, our community is a little cleaner, safer, wiser, and healthier. Litter and debris-ridden areas have been cleaned, community gardens created and improved, people in need have received vital donations, diverse groups have been educated on important issues, and disparate community groups joined together around a common desire to improve Milwaukee’s neighborhoods.

There’s an issue that affects 50% of women, but nobody talks about it. It took a brave woman, a new organization, and a network of nonprofit support to break the silence.

The issue is pelvic organ prolapse (POP). While it’s been on medical record for nearly 4,000 years, there’s little awareness among the public about POP, and according to Sherrie Palm, executive director of the Association for Pelvic Organ Prolapse Support (APOPS), there’s little training among clinicians or screening for the condition.

POP occurs when pelvic floor muscles weaken and one or more organs shift out of their normal positions into the vaginal canal. There are five types of POP: bladder (cystocele), intestines (enterocele), rectum (rectocele), uterus (uterine), and vagina (vaginal vault). The two leading causes of POP are vaginal childbirth and menopause. Come to think of it, don’t lots of women give birth or go through menopause? Why don’t we all know about POP?

Breaking the Silence

That’s exactly what Sherrie Palm thought when she was diagnosed in 2008. “Why don’t I know about this?”The silence around the issue comes at least in part from the fact that POP symptoms can feel embarrassing. They include pressure and pain, urinary incontinence, urine retention, fecal incontinence, chronic constipation, painful intercourse, lack of sexual sensation, coital incontinence (leakage of urine or stool during intimacy). Not exactly dinner conversation.

Whether embarrassing or not, POP became Palm’s reality, and it turned out she wanted to talk about it. “I find it ridiculous that POP is shrouded in silence. It is health—nothing more, nothing less,” she says. “Why not help women feel empowered with choices about their bodies rather than alone and ashamed?”

“Millions of women suffer in silence with symptoms they don’t understand, often for years, sometimes decades, before they’re diagnosed. There’s no POP screening during routine pelvic exams, which is ridiculous considering childbirth is the number one cause and the number two cause is menopause (there are many other causes as well). Also diagnostic clinicians (primary care and gynecology) are poorly educated on POP, which is absurd considering the prevalence is estimated to be half the female population,” says Palm. “Someone has to generate change.”

And that’s exactly what she did.

Getting Help from NPC

“I started my advocacy path by writing a book about POP. Then, about 15 months into marketing my first edition, the light bulb came on. In order to effectively help women, I should found a nonprofit. The realization shifted my entire path.”

Enter the Nonprofit Center of Milwaukee (NPC). When Sherrie shifted her focus from a book to full-fledged advocacy through a nonprofit, she started using the classes and consulting available from NPC.

“Working with NPC built the bricks that built the walls of our structure,” she reflects. Palm recruited Susanne Vella, training coordinator at NPC, to be on her board. “She’s an amazing resource with all kinds of information based on her many years in the sector combined with her amazing compassionate heart,” says Palm.

APOPS is staffed by eight volunteers who spend part of their time managing a closed Facebook support group. The organization also has a volunteer intern and several other volunteers who assist at events. APOPS has become a voice being heard in every state and around the world. They’ve moved from being the dream of a recently diagnosed patient to a global voice empowering women with POP and equipping medical professionals to better serve them.

The Networking Effect

While she values the classes she’s taken at NPC—first on nonprofit startup, governance, and management, then clarifying the vision, communicating value to potential supporters, and building a board—Palm says the greatest value has been “the networking effect”: “You not only learn from the teachers (all experts in their topics), but also from every attendee. For me, being connected to other women’s health organizations is of value.”

APOPS will hold its second walkathon, STIGMA#STRIDE, on June 5 at Greenfield Park. The inaugural APOPS 2016 Women’s Pelvic Health Congress will occur this August in Milwaukee and in Manchester, England. The event, which provides a POP curriculum for diagnostic clinicians, is planned to occur annually both in the US and abroad. “We are every woman,” says Palm about POP. The condition can occur from late teens through mid-80s and affects every physical, emotional, social, sexual, financial, educational, racial, nationality, employment, or fitness demographic you can think of.

As the silence is slowly broken, a loving, supportive tribe of women in APOPS waits for us, acting as a gentle wave of empowerment.

Hannah Weinberg-Kinsey is a Masters candidate in Education at Alverno College and a Reading Corps volunteer, in its inaugural year in Milwaukee, at Gwen T. Jackson Early Education and Elementary School.

I had a meeting recently with Marquette University and Avenues West to talk about the involvement of nonprofits in the Near Westside Partnership (NWSP). Or the lack of involvement to be more accurate. There is an initiative to change that and get nonprofits involved, which I’ll get to later in this blog.

Although one could argue that nonprofits have not been asked to be equal partners in the NWSP initiative, one person in our meeting spoke about an attitude from some nonprofits that he called the White Castle mentality. He was not referring to fast food.

Instead, what he was talking about is a nonprofit organization taking office space in a rougher neighborhood. They dig a figurative moat around their building, put up gates and “private parking” signs, and in general make it clear the neighbors are not welcome on the property. Meanwhile, the mostly white employees come swooping in driving their cars, parking behind the gate and going inside to work. At the end of the day they get back in their cars and drive away again. There is no engagement with the neighborhood around them, no investment in the people or the community in which they are located.

For many years we in the nonprofit sector, and the community as a whole, have talked about and promoted Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for private, for-profit corporations. We talk about how important it is for corporations to be invested in the community. We congratulate corporations with active philanthropic initiatives. We applaud them for promoting volunteerism among their employees. At NPC, we look to the 26 members of our Business Volunteer Council to model good corporate citizenship in their community involvement, and we just gave an award to GE Healthcare for contributing to the community through volunteerism.

One of the commonly cited benefits of CSR is goodwill banking. In other words, if a corporation has a strong CSR program, the community will look, on that company with affection and might even turn a blind eye to some of the negative things they do. “Yes, I know that company doesn't promote women to senior management levels. But we love them anyway because they give so much through their foundation!”

Nonprofits may have something to learn from that. We like to think of ourselves as pure and well intentioned. But are we perceived that way? A 2006 study suggests that only 10% of Americans think nonprofits are ethical in their use of donated funds. Not good, folks.

So how can we change that perception? Can we use CSR methodology to our advantage? Yes. While I haven't done extensive research on this, I know of at least one model of nonprofit corporate social responsibility published by a group of nonprofit management experts in Spain, affiliated with the Observatori del Tercer Sector. The authors suggest there is a social responsibility construct that involves seven aspects of the nonprofit organization, stressing the importance of adhering to values and seeing the entire organizational model as a way of reflecting CSR. One element of the model seems relevant to the meeting I had about NWSP: social involvement – represented, in this case, by the nonprofit’s relationship to the neighborhood in which it's located.

This is something many of us have to struggle with, including NPC. We have “private parking” signs in our lot. We've talked about putting a gate across the driveway. How would that look to our neighbors? On the other hand, our neighbors have dropped used needles, trash, and other unsavory items on our driveway and generally act like the parking lot is theirs. How does that look to our clients who come to a workshop?

When a nonprofit behaves like a White Castle, it is cutting itself off from the neighborhood. It also sends a signal that the people who work there are afraid of the neighborhood. There may be good, justifiable reasons not to be comfortable in the neighborhood, at which point maybe it is time to move. But the decision to stay can send a very strong and powerful signal as well. If the organization stays, it has a responsibility to engage and truly reflect the community aspect of what the nonprofit sector is all about.

NPC is partnering with Near Westside Partners and Marquette to convene nonprofits from the area to talk about this. If your nonprofit is inside or near the NWP neighborhood, you're invited toparticipate in a lunchtime discussion June 15 on the Marquette University campus covering questions such as: What do nonprofits see as the challenges and opportunities in this neighborhood? How would nonprofits like to be involved in the partnership as it works to reimagine this part of town?

​In the meantime, keep thinking about your nonprofit’s relationship,to the community, and to its values. Do you reflect your values in how you go about doing your business? Do you take responsibility for what is happening in your neighborhood? Do you make contributions to local initiatives? In other words, is your nonprofit a good corporate citizen?

This is the story of one of those volunteers, Bill Bravener, who serves Penfield Children’s Center. The center helps children ages 3 months to 6 years reach their full potential through education, therapy services and family programs. They provide physical, occupational, and speech therapy and have a behavioral clinic, outpatient therapy clinics, and a special care nursery as well as an accredited daycare for children up to age 6.

Knowing how much volunteers mean to nonprofits – I asked Bill what the experience has been like for him.

What made you decide to become a volunteer?I saw a notice in the newspaper for “volunteers needed” [in Volunteer Milwaukee's Helping Hands column in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel] and I had recently started semi-retirement.

What kind of help do you provide?I interact one to one with the children, assist the teachers in class activities, and chaperone on field trips.

How long have you volunteered there?I've volunteered in classrooms of two- and three-year-old children for three years.

What surprised you the most about volunteering?That I receive more benefits from volunteering than I provide.

When you think about your paid jobs, how is a volunteering different or the same?My career has been as a public school music teacher and a church music director. This is similar in that I continue to have the opportunity to work with children – which I love.

What new things have you learned through this volunteer opportunity?The children are so accepting of each other, no matter the developmental ability or ethnicity. They are good reminders to all of us that we are in this together, and to make the most out of life, and to celebrate our diversity.

Has it changed your view of the world in any way? My experience at Penfield reminds me that the more we help kids get off to a good start, especially kids with special challenges, the better our world will be.

Has it changed your view of this community in any way?Penfield Children’s Center has made me more aware of the needs in our community and the many wonderful resources that are available for families.

Has volunteering had benefits for you?In addition to enjoying my time with the children, I like interacting with the staff and developing friendships – it’s been a very positive experience.

What are you proudest of accomplishing in your work as a volunteer?I feel good about being a positive male role model in the children’s lives.

Would you recommend volunteering to others? I recommend it because you will get far more than you give. Volunteering is a great use of your time. It makes you feel engaged in your community, that you are making a difference.